KONY2012 Opens Pandora's Box: Uganda Government's Own Role in &quot;Dirty War&quot; Now Exposed

Uganda "appears" as agents of peace and security notwithstanding role in Uganda and DRCconflict

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[The Big Picture]

Background To The ConflictWhy is that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has not stated, at least publicly, that the Ugandan army and its leadership are currently underinvestigation for crimes committed in Uganda as well as in theDemocratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)?

I am not the firstperson to call for such an investigation. Other scholars, including Dr.Sverker Finnström, the author of the award winning book, Living with Bad Surroundings (SF 2008)) have argued that all sides to the armedconflict must be investigated if only to give appearance ofimpartiality. Kony2012 provides an opportunity for the ICC to reconsider its decision and commence investigating alleged crimes committed by the Uganda Peoples Defense Force (UPDF) formerly the National ResistanceArmy (NRA) under the leadership of its commander-in-chief, and long time serving army general Yoweri K. Museveni.

The armed conflict in northern Uganda took a "ethnic" dimension and fed on Uganda’snorth-south historical divide. Organized and systemic violence based onethnicity tend to result in genocide as witnessed in Rwanda. The NRM/NRA government failed to provide leadership in order to defuse the ethnicdivide and usher in national unity. Instead, the NRM/NRA leader, Gen.Museveni continued to peddle allegations that the Acholi and Langi werethe "enemies of Uganda" because they are responsible for killingcivilians in the Luwero triangle and looting their properties; Luwerowas a nexus area for the war between Museveni's NRA and President Milton Obote's government.

Significantly, besides Museveni’s allegations,there are no reports from a judicial inquiry determining who, or whicharmed groups, are responsible for the Luwero tragedy. President Museveni has consistently refused calls to establish a judicial inquiry to allmatters concerning the killings in Luwero yet he continues to hold theLangi and Acholi ethnic communities responsible.

Overall, thepurpose of the Museveni propaganda is not to identify those mostresponsible, but to mobilize Ugandans from central and western part ofthe country against people from the northern part of Uganda. Musevenijustifies the use of ethnic chauvinism in his book, Sowing the MustardSeed, (YKM 1997:177-178) as follows:

“Under previous regimes,the soldiers, most of whom came from the north, had been free to lootcivilian property. Whenever they looted such things, for examplecorrugated iron roofing sheets, they would take them to their homes, and their parents would not ask where they obtained them, in spite of thefact that one could easily tell the difference between a new iron sheetand one that had been previously nailed on someone else’ roof. In thisway, the whole community in Acholi and Lango had become involved in theplundering of Uganda for themselves. In other words, the reason whythose rebels in the north, organized on a tribal basis, were fightingfor control of the national government, was that the NRM as a government had stopped them from looting.”

As a mobilization tactic itwas very effective. Over the years, Museveni has continued propagatinghis "tribal" views by asserting that people from northern Uganda bearcollective criminal responsibility for "crimes committed by their sonsand daughters" against the people of central and western Uganda. Hefurther argues that the cause of armed conflict in northern Uganda isbecause Acholi and Langi have been stopped from looting government andprivate property (JKM 1997:178). Museveni’s ridiculous racist commentsthat Acholi and Langi went to war because they have been stopped fromlooting, while incorrect, has taken on a new life of its own as foreignand local press peddle the false statements and present the causes ofarmed conflict in northern Uganda is disagreement over looting. Thisfalse premise underpins the NRM policy on the dehumanization of Acholiand Langi.

Connected At Hips: Museveni And Ocampo The referral for investigation of the Uganda conflict is a positive stepand must be supported by all persons of good will. However, it isimperative that all parties to the armed conflict are investigated. Theconcern of many legal scholars and experts on the failure of theInternational Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate all sides isjustified. Some experts in international criminal law have suggested anumber of reasons for the failure to investigate the Ugandan army, theUPDF.

First, it is suggested that because the ICC has reliedon Museveni for the referral of the situation in Uganda to the court,the Museveni regime effectively assisted the Prosecutor in circumventing a difficult process which would have required seeking referral throughthe unpredictable political process in the United Nations SecurityCouncil. Alternatively, the Prosecutor would have tried to, propio motu, initiate investigation, but with the approval of the pre-trial chamber. On the other hand, a pre-trial chamber approval is not necessarily adone deal as such application can easily be rejected. The Prosecutortherefore owes a debt of gratitude to Museveni for making his work easy, particularly at a time when the OTP had almost no cases to work on.

Second, the Museveni regime provided, and continues to provide, security forthe ICC investigators. The regime’s support for the ICC includeproviding assistance to the investigators in identifying prosecutionwitnesses, particularly witnesses who are more likely to corroborategovernment narrative and not implicate the UPDF in the commission ofcrimes under investigation.

Further, the regime assists theICC in gathering evidence including protection of witnesses withinUganda. Overall, if the ICC Prosecutor decides to investigate or indictmembers of the UPDF including members of its leadership, the Office ofthe Prosecutor (OTP) may have problems in getting continued cooperation, protection and support from President Museveni and the UPDF.

However, the ICC justifies its working arrangement with the Uganda government on the ground that it does not have its own enforcement mechanism and must therefore rely on State cooperation, in this case, the Ugandan army and police. The Ugandan military escorts ICC investigators to "protectedcamps" and are present when witnesses are being interviewed.

Sometimes UPDF men and officers double as translators for the ICC investigators.It would therefore be foolish and extremely risky for the witnesses toimplicate members of the UPDF in the crimes under investigation. The ICC argument on State cooperation is valid but needs to balance itsindependence in the conduct of investigations by putting distancebetween its members and state officials.

It is unfortunatewhen cooperation between Uganda army and the ICC in the course ofinvestigations is used as a cover to protect members of the UPDF and its leadership from investigations. The Court's bias in favor of theUgandan army was particularly manifested in January 2004 when the ICCProsecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo appeared side-by-side with Museveni – apotential suspect – in a London conference to announce the opening ofthe investigations in the Uganda situation. In a judicial setting,appearance is as important as substantive justice. . "War On Terror:" Museveni Ingratiates Himself to U.S.Additionally, Gen. Museveni has also proved himself indispensable to the United States. For strategic reasons, Museveni fully embraced the idea of "war on terror". He used it to gain favor with the United States, its western allies and simultaneously destroy his internal political opponents.

To theUnited States, Gen. Museveni demonstrated his loyalty by sending troopsto Somalia. The United States has appreciated Museveni’s contribution to the "war on terror" and, as a reward, deployed US military "advisors"to Uganda plus sending millions of US dollars to Uganda in support ofthe UPDF.

Thus, the international community’s unquestioningcooperation with Uganda has allowed the NRM/NRA government to appear asagents of peace and security notwithstanding its role in the armedconflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and the fact thathe continues to direct his soldiers and police force to commit crimesinside and outside Uganda.

The ICC is silent on Museveni’srecruitment and use of child soldiers and his cooperation with convicted war criminal Thomas Lubanga of the DRC. Gen. Museveni has alsosupported Jean Pierre Bemba, also of the DRC, currently on trial beforethe ICC. The ICC Prosecutor Ocampo has demonstrated no interests in theUPDF who trained, financed and fought alongside Bemba’s soldiers.

Within Uganda, the "war on terror" is directed against the internal politicalopposition and has nothing to do with terrorism. During the 2006 and2011 national elections, the UPDF alongside the national policeviolently attacked members and supporters of the opposition parties,killing some and detaining their leaders. Other opposition members werelater charged with treason, a crime that on conviction carries the death penalty. It is significant that the ICC was not concerned and issued no statement condemning the practice. Yet, the ICC was quick to act on the electoral disputes in Kenya and the Ivory Coast.

The So-called "Protected" Camps The war against the LRA would have ended much earlier; the Museveni regimemilked it for internal political reasons. At the start of the 1990s, the Museveni regime introduced a scorched earth policy in its war againstthe LRA. The NRM's northern Uganda policy was to destroy food by burning food stores and crops ready for harvest. The objective for destroyingfood was purportedly to deny LRA sustenance. It was also to dehumanizeand pauperize the local population.

The Museveni regime made noarrangement to feed the civilian population after their food and foodcrops were destroyed, provided no sanitary facilities or adequatelodgings of the inmates. The government knowingly failed, neglected orwillingly refused to protect its citizens as required by law.

Thesecond prong of the NRM northern policy was to destroy homes by burningthe houses and to place the civilian population in "protected" camps.There were between 1.4 and 1.6 million civilians packed in squalidcompounds with no sanitary facilities, clinics or schools. Due to, among other things, poor sanitary conditions, lack of medicine, food andproper shelter, and consistent with government policy of dehumanizingthe civilian population, at least 1,000 people, mainly women andchildren were dying every week in the "protected" camps.

The governmentknew or had reason to know about the mass murder of civilians in the"protected" camps. It did nothing, and even denied there were civiliandeaths.

The camps served the strategic interests of the UPDF, LRAand NGOs. This human zoo provided a unique opportunity for NGOs toconduct research on humans living under squalid conditions. Guludistrict alone was host to close to 100 NGOs. In many respects, theassortment of NGOs assisted the NRM government in prolonging the war:focusing on ameliorating the catastrophe rather than exposing the policy of planned neglect. Overall, the concentration camps became cash cow--rolling out money to the NGOs, medical supply to the LRA and confiningthe civilian population while leaving the vast Acholi land to the UPDF.

The land became war booty as the government parceled it out to its favorite soldiers and "investors". Each of the three major players – the NGOs,LRA and UPDF - benefited from maintaining "protected" camps for as longas it lasted.

The ICC's Moral And Judicial Responsibility While some of the criminal acts committed by the UPDF fall outside the ICCtemporal jurisdiction, the manner and methods of the commission of thecrimes do provide evidence of a consistent pattern of conduct by theUPDF, a conduct that continued after July 1, 2002 when the Rome Treatyestablishing the ICC became operational. To that extent, they providebackground information on the conduct and behavior of the UPDF soldiersand its leadership during the 20-year war in northern Uganda.

The deathtoll of civilians in "protected" camps, estimated at 1,000 persons perweek, needs to be investigated by the ICC. Confining men, women,children, the old, sick and the infirm in camps without adequate food,sanitation or medical assistance is not only criminal but immoral andevil. Political philosopher Hannah Arendt would have described the"concentration camps" in northern Uganda as radical evil.

Radicalevil, according to Emmanuel Kant, is the type of evil that is rooted inan evil motivation, an intention to do evil, a person’s evil heart.

Kant held radical evil to be rare and quite different from evil that is done out of ignorance or an intention to do well that has gone awry. Arendt, in The Life of the Mind (HA 1978), explains that an intention toestablish "concentration camps" during the second world war could havecome only from an intention to do evil, to achieve some end outside ofcommonsense reasoning.

In Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report onthe Banality of Evil (HA 1968) what Arendt tried to capture with thatphrase, banality of evil, was the kind of radical evil that results from a particular capacity to stop thinking inherent in people likeEichmann, whose thoughtlessness was fostered by the fact that everyonearound him went along unquestioningly with Hitler’s extermination orderand his vision of the glorious Thousand Year Reich.

There aresome people in the UPDF who think and behave like Eichmann. Theirresponsibility is to terrorize and torture inmates of the "protected"camps. In some cases, the victims are buried alive, and left to die, aswas the case at Bucoro in Gulu District.

It is in this contextthat the Kony’s indictment and the allegations therein, must beassessed. The Kony indictment is also interesting because allegationsagainst kony are closely related to acts or omissions of the UPDF. It is not surprising that the UPDF prefer to have Kony dead. If he everappears before the ICC, Kony’s testimony would probably disclose theUgandan army's close cooperation and collaboration with the UPDF and its leadership in the conduct of war in northern Uganda.

JosephKony is charged with 33 counts. The public version of the Indictment isextensively redacted. Of the 33 counts, 28 relate to crimes allegedlycommitted within the IDP camps; camps that were guarded by the Ugandanarmy at the relevant times. The remaining five counts relate to crimesallegedly committed outside the premises of the IDP camps but withinUganda. The Uganda government has always insisted that the LRA has nocontrol over any part of the territory of Uganda. The crimes allegedlycommitted by the LRA were in areas controlled by the Ugandan government.

Uganda Army's Complicity In Crimes?A careful reading ofthe Kony indictment leaves a lot of questions unanswered. What was, forexample, the relationship between the LRA and the UPDF? How was itpossible for a group of untrained fighters, barely literate, poorlyorganized as well as poorly armed could over-power the UPDF guards atnot only one, but all "protected" camps in northern Uganda?

The LRA did not only over-power the UPDF, but had time to loot food andmedicine, rape and sexually assault many women and girls in the camp,and finally abduct as many children as they wanted without beingconfronted by the UPDF?

The impression given is that the LRA wassuch a powerful military force, and far superior to the UPDF that itcould enter and leave any camp and at a time as it pleases. Thisscenario is hard to fathom. On the other hand, what was the UPDFobjective in protecting the civilians in the camps?

The impressionone gets is that either the UPDF are extremely incompetent; or they arecomplicit in the crimes. One may infer from the conduct of the UPDF that it aided and abetted the LRA in the commission of the alleged crimes.

Alternatively, the UPDF leadership must bear criminal responsibility for omission inthat, through its military and political structure, the NRM/NRA and itsleadership failed to prevent the deaths of 1,000 civilians every weekover several years; failed to protect women and girls in the camps fromrape and sexual assault; and failed to prevent the abduction ofcivilians.

It is these and other crimes committed in northernUganda that the ICC Prosecutor has a duty and responsibility toinvestigate. Kony is the tip of the iceberg.